Walking Barefoot
by thepandathatrawrs
Summary: Little Hangleton is burning to cinders, and all she can think is 'Regulus did this, Regulus did this, Regulus did this.' Oneshot.


There's fire everywhere and smoke is filling up her head when there's not enough space to _think_ and it's hard tobreathe. Flaming debris are falling all around her and in the midst of people's screams only one sentence consumes her as much as the heat, repeating _Regulus did this, Regulus did this, Regulus did this_.

He's destroying everything that she's ever loved and she doesn't understand why he has to do this, why he has to turn into the rest of his despicable Slytherin friends and turn his back on her when she _hasn't done anything to deserve it._

Before she's aware of it she's climbing over the broken pieces of what's left of the front door and ignores the burning staircase that's collapsing to the left because if she starts caring then she'll have to admit that this is her childhood home burning into cinders and then she won't have the will to leave. She gasps for air once she stumbles onto the road but it's not fresh air that enters her lungs but black ash that's blowing in from the rest of the houses because they're all on _fire_.

Little Hangleton is burning to cinders.

Through the chaotic screams and the frantic calls for the firemen, ambulance, policemen, _anybody_, she can make out a blurry figure that stumbles to the ground and the cry penetrates the cacophony and without hesitation she's fighting her way through the thick crowd to help. She realises that this is Little Johnny from across the road, the five year old she used to babysit during the summer holidays before her graduation.

"It's going to be okay Johnny," she murmurs and the ashes choke her for lying, for speaking empty words that held empty promises, "It's me, Maisie." Her fingers come in contact with something sticky and wet when they graze comfortingly over his forehead and she sees blood through the dust that coats her hands.

She's trembling now but she can't pay any attention to that, not when Little Johnny is starting to cry harder than before into her shoulder and all she can do is pull him closer to her in a hug. "Where are your parents?" she asks but she dreads the answer, especially when Little Johnny doesn't answer, but she has to try, she has to know that his parents are okay because Mrs. White would be awfully worried if she finds out her only son is missing. "Johnny – Johnny, you have to tell me so that they know where you are. Please – _please, _Johnny_._"

Perhaps he hears how her voice breaks despite her best tries not to break out into tears herself because he pauses long enough to point at the wreckage that has all but burned to the ground – the wreckage that has once been his home. It's harder to fight back a sob that crawls up her scratchy throat but she has to try, she has to be the adult between the two of them because Little Johnny is _little_ and now he has nobody, while she still has everybody. _Her _parents are safe and sound in a party in the middle of London, _her_ parents aren't mixed with the bloodied earth and the scorched remains of the little innocence left untouched.

"Let's get you to an ambulance," she finally manages to say but she must've said something wrong because his face scrunches up and she knows that he's about to start bawling. _Don't cry Johnny or else I'm going to cry and God knows what good that'll do for us so please oh please stop your crying._

"I'm – not – leaving – Mummy – and – Daddy!" he says fiercely through the sobs and she's glad his face is still buried in her shoulder because silent tears are streaking down her face now, sullied by the ashes of her friends and memories and she can't bear to wipe them away.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but we really need to get your forehead fixed, okay?"

Relief washes through her when he suddenly sags against her tiredly despite his feeble protests that he mumbles into her damp shirt and she staggers towards the ambulance that has finally arrived. She's the first one to arrive so they take Johnny in, and it breaks her heart to tell that wide-eyed face that she can't go with him to the hospital because she's looking for his parents but she was going to join him soon, okay?

She waves as the vehicle sets off once it's filled with as many people as they can hold and it takes her awhile to regain her strength. It's so tempting when the remaining paramedics ask her to come with them to the hospital – what she wouldn't do to get her selfish moment of rest and allow somebody else to be responsible, she was so _sick_ of being responsible – but she stays, because the people of Little Hangleton need her more than she needs help so she stays.

The night sky above turns even darker with the help of the acrid smoke that rises from the fire that rages through the village.

She's about to help Old Lady Watson who's standing far away with that helpless look on her sweet, wrinkled face when a scorching heat from behind accompanied with a boom that crawls down her spine with an ominous chill breaks her heart into a million fragments because she doesn't have to turn around to know what has just happened.

But she turns around anyway and the sight of the upturned ambulance car with its wheels turning pathetically up to the stars rips an anguished cry from her lips but there is no sound to express her pain. Flames lick the vehicle and charred limbs limply stick out through the shattered glass and she knows there's no hope but she runs towards the exploded car anyway with her heart thudding loudly in her ears.

_Thud. Thud. Thud_. A thud for every life she couldn't save.

She whips out her willow wand from her pocket. It doesn't matter who sees and who doesn't because what does it matter when everything is burning down to the ground anyway? The Ministry can deal with the Muggles later since it's the least they can do after not being able to protect the beloved village when it was magic that started it all.

"_Aguamenti_!" she cries and water is steadily streaming out of the tip of her wand, but what does it matter? They're all dead, Little Johnny's dead, and she should've died with them, she should've let Little Johnny stay a little longer with his dead parents if only to keep him alive herself. But the water's not enough to dull the fire that consumes the ambulance and instead she stops _trying_ and rips the ambulance door open as far as she can.

White, hot pain sears up her palms where they last touched the metal handles but that's nothing compared to the unrecognizable faces the fire has been merciful to. Something clatters onto the gravel road – she's sure it's her wand, it has to be because she's not holding anything but her hands have gone numb, she _can't feel anything_ – and she falls to her knees.

But they don't give her time to grieve because there's that all-too-familiar pop from a few feet away from her and she _knows_.

Everything falls into a blur and in a blink of an eye she's up close to the masked face that she can make out the unmistakable grey eyes that hide behind the metal, she can hear his unsteady breathing, and the shoulder that she pushes hard – even if her palms can't feel anything she just _knows_ – is firm and unrelenting like the horrible bastard she's finally figured out he is.

"YOU - _MURDERER_!" she shrieks and she hates the way fat tears are rolling down her dirty cheeks because he's seen her weak so many times and she was _always_ trying to prove to him she's not the same first year Hufflepuff he'd seen sniffling in the corner because Malfoy and his cronies had called her a _mudblood_.

He blasts her away from his face with a spell she doesn't recognise and she collides painfully with the charred wood and gravel that's scattered all around the road. That's one pain that she can feel, that's one pain that she has to face head on and it _hurts_. Clutching her side, her forehead rests against a broken picture frame that must've somehow escaped from one of the demolished houses. She doesn't know whose blood stain these roads – hers, Little Johnny's, Old Lady Watson's, dozens of childhood friends' that she'd drifted apart from because they were Muggle and they couldn't certainly know about Hogwarts or _magic_.

He's the cause of all this pain. _He _killed Little Johnny, Old Lady Watson, dozens of her childhood friends she'd drifted from. _He's_ no better than his brutish Slytherin friends that bullied her and other Muggleborns for being something they had no control over.

"Why didn't you leave?" the cold voice rings through the neighbourhood but all she can think of is how the screams have suddenly stopped and if she looked to her right she'd probably see countless of people splayed on the road with glassy eyes and burned faces and the people who were crawling feebly to safety weren't going to make it as long as these Death Eaters had a say in it.

"Why didn't you _leave_, Maisie? I _told_ you that there was going to be an attack!"

She manages to stand back on her feet and her vision is blurry from the smoke and sweat and blood and tears that have all united to betray her for being so _weak_. "I am no _coward._" She spits out the acrid taste that lingers on her tongue and she's still crying but she refuses to let that deter her now, not when she had so much blood on her hands.

Somehow he's in front of her again and his gloved hands bunch around the front of her shirt, tugging her violently towards him. "You're as foolish as ever – you could've _lived_," he sneers, shaking her once that leaves her teeth rattling.

"I wasn't going to turn my back on the people that I love just to save my own arse," she snaps but it lacks the bite it's supposed to have and even if he's wearing the metallic mask she _knows_ he's smirking in his self-righteous glory. The thought only encourages her to add, "I'm not _you_, Regulus."

His hand that is twisted around her shirt tightens before he lets go and she fumbles at the sudden, sharp contact of the gravel and her bare feet. An unwanted memory buried from so long ago unexpectedly resurfaces and she's left blinking, disoriented from the indistinguishable blend of the past and present.

"_Typical Maisie," Regulus laughs as she avoids stepping on a dangerously pointy rock, thanks to his sharp eyes, "Always walking around without shoes on whenever you have the chance – when will you realise it's never safe to go barefoot?"_

"Typical Maisie," this masked figure repeats and she reels back from the invisible hand that has knocked the remaining ashen wind from her body.

"Silly Reggie." The response is automatic but that's only because she's _tired_, tired like how Little Johnny had been with sad resignation weighing his tiny shoulders down when she told him he had to _leave _his parents.

"_Silly Reggie," Maisie chants back and links her arm through Regulus' with the innocence of an eleven year old, "I can always walk barefoot around you."_

Numerous cracks disrupt the still air of death and desperation and when she blinks again wands are pointed everywhere in every direction.

"Regulus, put your wand down!" The voice that issues the warning sounds startling like Regulus', except it's lower and gruffer and absence of the gentle caress she knew Regulus could adopt.

"Kill her."

She turns her head to the masked figure that's Apparated near Regulus' side and they're looking directly at her. Fear creeps in the mist of fatigue and pain and she takes a step back but she trips over a sprawled arm. She swears that Regulus flinches, almost like he's about to reach out for her out of habit before he remembers where and who he is.

A completely warm, unfamiliar hand rests on her shoulder.

It's alive, it's pulsing, and it promises of rest. That's all she needs and only then does she allow her mind to shut itself from the shocks of loss and betrayal while the unfamiliar, familiar stranger Disapparates from the burning village of Little Hangleton, away from _him_.

When she wakes up in the alien room, she doesn't notice the faded pajamas that she sports or the way the white tape that's wrapped around her midriff crinkles under the clean shirt. Her weary gaze falls onto her feet that stick awkwardly out of the blanket.

She's wearing red, fluffy lion slippers.

"_Typical Maisie," Regulus laughs as she avoids stepping on a dangerously pointy rock, thanks to his sharp eyes, "Always walking around without shoes on whenever you have the chance – when will you realise it's never safe to go barefoot?"_

"_Silly Reggie," Maisie chants back and links her arm through Regulus' with the innocence of an eleven year old, "I can always walk barefoot around you."_

_He stops abruptly and she almost runs into him. She sends him a questioning look when he asks in a strangled voice, "Why's that?"_

_She looks like it's the first time she'd ever given it a proper thought. "You're going to be here to keep me safe anyway." She wants to start their stroll around again but the older boy isn't walking. He's just standing there with a frown on his face that makes him look years older than his twelve year old self. She doesn't like it – she likes seeing Reggie smiling (even if it's a rare occurrence) and she wants to enjoy their walk around the grounds as much as she can before he has to return to his nasty Slytherin friends that hate her (he won't tell her why they do). _

"_What if I can't keep you safe?"_

_She stifles a giggle, only because he gives her such a solemn look that makes her feel bad for laughing. Instead she says rather matter-of-factly, "Why, of course you can, silly – if you can't stop me from stepping on sharp things, who can?" She shoots him a wide grin that reveals the gap between her two front teeth._

_He smiles back._


End file.
